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Month: March 2018

Incoming national security adviser John Bolton played role in NRA-Russian gun rights alliance

Incoming national security adviser John Bolton played role in NRA-Russian gun rights alliance

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NPR reports: Incoming White House national security adviser John Bolton recorded a video used by the Russian gun rights group The Right to Bear Arms in 2013 to encourage the Russian government to loosen gun laws. The episode, which has not been previously reported, illustrates the common cause that Russian and American gun rights groups were forming in the years leading up to the 2016 election through former National Rifle Association President David Keene. Keene appointed Bolton to the NRA’s…

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It’s time to regulate the internet

It’s time to regulate the internet

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Franklin Foer writes: As Facebook’s scandals have unfolded, the backlash against Big Tech has accelerated at a dizzying pace. Anger, however, has outpaced thinking. The most fully drawn and enthusiastically backed proposal now circulating through Congress would regulate political ads that can appear on the platform, a law that hardly curbs the company’s power or profits. And, it should be said, a law that does nothing to attack the core of the problem: the absence of governmental protections for personal…

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A history of hype behind Cambridge Analytica

A history of hype behind Cambridge Analytica

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Nigel Oakes, the founder of Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL Group, once described his work in this way: “We use the same techniques as Aristotle and Hitler. We appeal to people on an emotional level to get them to agree on a functional level.” As an Old Etonian, his ties to royalty, the aristocracy, and the rich and famous, seemed to foster (at least in his own mind) the notion that he had the skills and connections required for shaping…

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Zuckerberg breaks silence without answering key questions

Zuckerberg breaks silence without answering key questions

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Who are you sharing your life with? #regulatefacebook pic.twitter.com/r7B7Ajkt0V — Jim Carrey (@JimCarrey) March 20, 2018 Alexis C Madrigal writes: Two years and four months after Facebook found out that Cambridge Analytica might have illicitly pulled user data from its platform, and five days after the latest round of stories about the political consultancy’s electioneering, Mark Zuckerberg finally made a statement about the situation. Despite Facebook previously contesting that it was a “data breach,” Zuckerberg offered up the exact solutions…

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After poisoning of former Russian spy in UK, Trump calls Putin to congratulate him

After poisoning of former Russian spy in UK, Trump calls Putin to congratulate him

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Russian state TV is predictably joyous over Trump's congratulatory call to Putin. One day earlier, Kremlin spokesman Peskov used a proverb "Utro vechera mudrenee," which can be loosely translated as "Better sleep on it." State TV host says: "Trump got scared of Peskov & called." pic.twitter.com/0KKbnz9aN1 — Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) March 21, 2018 The Washington Post reports: President Trump did not follow specific warnings from his national security advisers Tuesday when he congratulated Russian President Vladi­mir Putin on his reelection…

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Steve Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica’s collection of Facebook data

Steve Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica’s collection of Facebook data

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The Washington Post reports: Conservative strategist Stephen K. Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica’s early efforts to collect troves of Facebook data as part of an ambitious program to build detailed profiles of millions of American voters, a former employee of the data-science firm said Tuesday. The 2014 effort was part of a high-tech form of voter persuasion touted by the company, which under Bannon identified and tested the power of anti-establishment messages that later would emerge as central themes in President…

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Facebook employees feel increasingly responsible for the world’s problems

Facebook employees feel increasingly responsible for the world’s problems

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At an all-hands meeting for Facebook employees at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park on Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg didn’t show up. Fielding questions for just 30 minutes was the company’s deputy general counsel, Paul Grewal. In its dealings with Cambridge Analytica, Facebook had not acted improperly, he insisted. But as Bloomberg Businessweek reports: One employee asked the same question twice: Even if Facebook played by its own rules, and the developer followed policies at the…

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TV executives eager to boost ratings did more than Cambridge Analytica to elect Trump

TV executives eager to boost ratings did more than Cambridge Analytica to elect Trump

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Ross Douthat writes: No doubt all the activity on Facebook and the apparent use of Facebook’s data had some impact, somewhere, on Trump’s surprise victory. But the media format that really made him president, the one whose weaknesses and perversities and polarizing tendencies he brilliantly exploited, wasn’t Zuckerberg’s unreal kingdom; it wasn’t even the Twitter platform where Trump struts and frets and rages daily. It was that old pre-internet standby, broadcast and cable television, and especially TV news. Start with…

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Facebook is blacklisted by major European bank, Nordea

Facebook is blacklisted by major European bank, Nordea

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Bloomberg reports: The biggest bank in the Nordic region will no longer let its sustainable investment unit buy more stock in Facebook Inc. Nordea Bank AB has decided to “quarantine” Facebook investments in the asset management unit, “given the high-level revelations and the turmoil surrounding the company with a strong public backlash,” head of sustainable finance, Sasja Beslik, wrote on Twitter. “One-offs, fine. Usually that’s something that a company can manage in a responsible way,” Beslik said by phone. “What…

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I am being used as scapegoat – academic who mined Facebook data

I am being used as scapegoat – academic who mined Facebook data

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The Guardian reports: [Aleksandr] Kogan [a Moldovan-born researcher from Cambridge University at the center of Facebook’s data breach] said the scandal raised questions about the business model of social networking companies. Kogan said: “The project that Cambridge Analytica has allegedly done, which is use people’s Facebook data for micro-targeting, is the primary use case for most data on these platforms. Facebook and Twitter and other platforms make their money through advertising and so there’s an agreement between the user of…

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Cambridge Analytica says it ran ‘all’ of Trump’s digital campaign

Cambridge Analytica says it ran ‘all’ of Trump’s digital campaign

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  Channel 4 News reports: Mr Nix boasted about Cambridge Analytica’s work for Trump, saying: “We did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting, we ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy.” Separately, Mr Turnbull described how the company could create proxy organisations to discreetly feed negative material about opposition candidates on to the Internet and social media. He said: “Sometimes you can use proxy organisations who…

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Facebook is in the business of data surveillance

Facebook is in the business of data surveillance

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Following reports on Cambridge Analytica’s harvesting of 50 million personal profiles, Paul Grewal, a vice president and deputy general counsel at Facebook, wrote that “the claim that this is a data breach is completely false.” Zeynep Tufekci writes: Grewal is right: This wasn’t a breach in the technical sense. It is something even more troubling: an all-too-natural consequence of Facebook’s business model, which involves having people go to the site for social interaction, only to be quietly subjected to an…

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How Facebook groups are being exploited to spread misinformation

How Facebook groups are being exploited to spread misinformation

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BuzzFeed reports: One week after the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, those searching on Facebook for information about the upcoming March for Our Lives were likely to be shown an active group with more than 50,000 members. Called “March for Our Lives 2018 Official,” it appeared to be one of the best places to get details about the event and connect with others interested in gun control. But those who joined the group soon found themselves puzzled. The admins often…

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The Cambridge Analytica-Facebook debacle: A legal primer

The Cambridge Analytica-Facebook debacle: A legal primer

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Andrew Keane Woods writes: If you’re [Aleksandr] Kogan, or Cambridge Analytica, expect lawsuits, public hearings and general regulatory hell. Maybe, in the extreme, jail time. If you’re Facebook, expect lawsuits, public hearings, and general regulatory hell. Maybe, in the extreme, the end of the firm as we know it. Facebook is hoping to pin this on two bad apples: Kogan and Cambridge Analytica. And bad apples they were. But this is a dangerous strategy. For Facebook, the claim that it…

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